


Different

by mayfriend



Category: Men in Black (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, High T is Agent H's Father Figure, Hive Mind, Hive-infested Agent H, Hive-infested Agent T, Idiots in Love, Mind Meld, Mind Rape, Mindfuck, Possession, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 06:28:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19435798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayfriend/pseuds/mayfriend
Summary: You’ve changed,Vungus tells him.H doesn’t know how right he is.In which all those hints about H being a different person actually add up to something.





	Different

**Author's Note:**

> We were blessed in the year of our lord 2019 with Chris Hemsworth playing a slutty secret agent, of fucking course I'm going to write a fic
> 
> Also, y'know what? I'm gonna say it. Men in Black: International is a good film, vastly superior to MIB II and III, but it's getting panned by critics who can't countenance the idea of female-led action reboots being better than male-led mediocre sequels. Fuck misogynist lives.
> 
> Blessings to Gayac for being an amazing sounding board, love you 💕

_You’ve changed,_ Vungus tells him. 

H doesn’t know how right he is.

* * *

T is at his side when he wakes up, sprawled on the metal grate floor, head pounding, heart racing. He feels off, like he’s drunk or drugged, every cell in his body screaming _something’s wrong, something’s wrong, something’s wrong._

“What happened?” he asks T, and T smiles at him tiredly like he’s a thousand years old. 

“We won,” he says simply, reaching out and pushing H’s floppy hair out of his face. H doesn’t lean into the touch, he _doesn’t_. (He doesn’t see T’s hand on his neuralyzer either.) “With only our series-seven atomisers and our wits.”

* * *

He finds it hard to sleep. Or rather, he finds it hard to sleep peacefully. He closes his eyes and finds himself looking at the tentacles again, frozen as they emerge from the portal like living death. 

He watches T fall, hears him scream. He lifts his atomiser, and- 

H wakes. He takes pills, drinks a stunning amount of Class-Nine ichor, exhausts himself by pulling all-nighters. Nothing works. He’s always back at the Eiffel Tower, always watching it go wrong, always watching those inhuman limbs approach, always unable to stop them. He almost tells T, the once; he doesn’t quite know why he doesn’t. 

T’s like a father to him, after all. 

* * *

When H was still Henry, he got recruited because he pickpocketed T and got halfway across London before the other man noticed. You’d think it’d be hard to be a thief, looking like he does; people tend to notice him. But that’s the trick of it - if they’re looking at his face, his body, his backside, they’re definitely not paying attention to his hands. Henry had thought he was going to die when the black-suited man he’d robbed earlier that same day had knocked on his flat door, so he did the obvious thing and climbed out the window. He lived on the 13th floor.

H doesn’t know if it was that combined display of physical prowess and sheer insanity that prompted T to offer him a job, or the fact that he’d managed to get his hand in his coat pocket and out again without losing a finger or three. Either way, T told him he could be great, and Henry had never wanted anything more. 

There are things he will want more, in the future. But at nineteen, with no prospects and no family and no qualifications, nothing but his fast hands and pretty face and quick wit, Henry wants to be _great._

T shows him how.

* * *

So H doesn’t go to T. 

(Except he doesn’t know why. He could’ve sworn he was walking to his office once, but got turned around. Over and over. The universe has a way of making sure you’re in the right place at the right time, and H guesses that means the right place isn’t where he thought it was.) 

And he doesn’t think too hard about the nightmares, or the sense of wrongness that bleeds through him less and less, until it's nothing more than a faint buzz under his skin, and he forgets. He forgets until Vungus touches his arm, and looks at him in shock, and says _you’re different._

And then it’s really, really hard to forget anymore.

* * *

Picking pockets is like riding a bike in some respects. You never forget. 

So H doesn’t have to try, not really, to fish into M’s blazer pocket in Marrakesh and pull out a jagged, purple stone that makes his entire body tense up as soon as he holds it in his palm. He thinks it’s a spasm; he’s never seen this before, there’s no reason for him to recognise it. But recognise it he does. 

He thinks: shiny. He thinks: dangerous. 

(He thinks: _ours.)_

Then he’s himself again, and the rock is just a rock, albeit one that M really shouldn’t have, and he’s able to toss it back to her without doubling over from the agony that tickles at the back of his brain for no reason. 

* * *

He sleeps in the Empty Quarter, and for the first time in three years, he doesn’t dream of the Hive or the Eiffel Tower; instead, he dreams of T. He dreams of his mentor, his father in all but name, staring up at stars that aren’t his own.

T looks- no, it’s more than a visible emotion, it’s something that H _feels,_ deep in his bones _-_ sad. Lonely. Like he’s been cast out at sea, and he’s waiting to be pulled back to the ship but the water is so cold and the sea is so deep and he is so alone, so alone, he’s never been so alone before-

But that makes no sense. T has never needed other people, not like H. H has always struggled with solitude, and T has always thrived in it. H - Henry - the boy he once was, he’d wept when T told him he had to choose between his life and his future, even if his life hadn’t been much at that point; a couple of fairweather friends, a few old school mates, fences that gave him good rates cause he was reliable. It wasn’t much to lose, but it was his all the same. T hadn’t judged him for it, but he hadn’t understood it either. 

So for T to feel _this,_ this distance and grief and impatience and sorrow, it- it makes no sense. None. H reaches for him, at least tries to, but he has no hands, no arms, no body. Still, it feels like he touches him somehow - T turns, and his lined face goes grave when he looks at H. H can’t remember T ever looking at him like this before, but something in his stomach whispers _this has happened_ before. 

“Oh, my son,” T says, and H wakes. 

He doesn’t remember his dream, and figures its the same one as always.

* * *

In Naples, he’s surprised by Riza. Or rather, he’s surprised by his own reaction to Riza. For as long as he’s known her, she’s had a power over him that he’s never truly been able to resist - the sway of her hips, the flick of her eyes, the smell of her perfume. He’d prepared himself as best he could beforehand, but he hadn’t actually expected it to work.

Yet all of a sudden, he’s developed an immunity. 

He looks at her, and he doesn’t see the woman he fell in love with, or a dangerous arms dealer, or even a recent ex where the wound is still raw enough to hurt. 

He looks at her and sees an obstacle between him and that gun. 

It scares him a little, just how much he doesn’t feel when she’s turned on by her own bodyguard. He’d wanted to spend the rest of his life with this woman once, and now-

M - _Molly,_ and by god does it suit her - takes the gun. He’s honestly relieved not to have it in his hand again, because he doesn’t quite know what would happen if he did. When T appears and blasts the hostile aliens to smithereens, he finally relaxes completely. 

Molly hands over the weapon, and H knows it’s meant to be with T, that it’s safe with T, that he’s completed his mission, and feels all the fight and tension drain out of him all at once. On the flight back to London, H dares fall asleep, and has no nightmares.

* * *

_Something’s wrong,_ a voice that sounds a lot like T’s says, which is stupid, because T’s right there, T’s got the gun, everything is fine. The voice doesn’t let up, though: _something’s wrong, something’s wrong, something’s wrong._

“Something’s wrong,” Molly voices, and H knows she’s right, like he knows the sky is blue and the Earth is big and the universe is bigger. He just doesn’t know _how_ he knows.

* * *

It’s hard not to remember the last time he was in Paris, the last time he was riding up this rickety lift all the way to the top. But it’s also impossible to remember. 

“Why am I-” he puts a hand to his chest, feeling like he’s been running a marathon and never realised until now, “I’m repeating myself, aren’t I?” 

Molly’s dark, doe eyes are all the answer he needs. “I think you were neuralyzed, H,” she says, and he opens his mouth to deny it, and finds he can’t. His voice is gone. His mind is gone. His head- his head _aches-_

“H? H!” He’s slumped to the floor of the elevator, and her hands are on his skin. He’s so cold. So cold. “H, can you hear me? Please, H-”

Her eyes are like stars, he thinks. Her eyes are like black holes, dragging him in. They had to conquer other worlds, he remembers suddenly, staring at her dark, dark eyes, because their own was swallowed by a dying star. He remembers, they remember, the way the sky burned. They remember. They remember what they are, what they have always been, before they were H and before they were Henry and before they were just another part of him, another pair of eyes, another watcher-

“I’m repeating myself, aren’t I?” he speaks with the vessel’s mouth, tripping over the words again and again, “Aren’t I? Aren’t I?” The words are thick, clumsy, _wrong._ “Aren’t we?”

Hands release him. He isn’t sure where he is, but he knows- they know it’s going exactly like was planned. They hear T- 

They hear their commander-

The songs of their people, rising, rising as the portal grows wider, wider, soon they’ll be home again, soon this world will be another conquest, another outpost, and maybe then they can go home, just for a little while, they have not been amongst their people in such a long, long time-

They see through his partner’s many eyes, at the body that’s been their cage, just another empty shell hollowed out to make room inside while they waited for the right moment. Humans, they are so primitive, each with their own thoughts and own mistakes, and so easy to sow discord between, so easy to trick because they are not One, not like the Hive. 

They wonder what is taking so long. This is no time for subtlety, not anymore, and they realise with faint astonishment that the vessel is fighting- _Henry_ is fighting-

They know him inside out. They know everything. They know the boy he was, and the man he’s become, every weakness and every thought and every fear; they know he is weak, weak at his core, and yet, he’s fighting. It’s almost admirable, that he thinks he can win. That he ever thought so.

The female- the agent- _Molly_ is sucked into the portal, still screaming at H to fight, _fight_ , not knowing how ridiculous such a concept is- she and he are ants fighting giants, and it doesn’t matter how brave they are, how clever, how quick- they cannot win this. 

Henry’s eyes are open, and he can see them, all of them, all of what he has been harbouring unknowingly and thoughtlessly. He knows how strong they are, and how impossible his odds truly are. And still he fights.

“T,” he gasps, and then, almost smiling: “M. M. _Molly.”_

He is so blind, and yet he sees what they don’t. 

The last thing they do is scream, and then everything is gone. The Hive, their planet, every intangible link and every ounce of intent. And then there is only Henry.

* * *

“Agent H may never awaken,” O reminds M as she requests a permanent reassignment to the London branch. “Are you absolutely sure about this? You are a very promising agent, M. I would hate to see your potential go to waste.”

“This is not a waste,” M responds cooly, but there’s a spark in her eyes that spits _careful, careful now._ M has destroyed a billion beings, torn apart one of the greatest galactic empires the world has ever known; she is a queen and a killer and she has made up her mind.

O sighs, suddenly feeling very old, and gives her consent.

* * *

An eternity later, Henry opens his eyes. The room is a blinding, sterile white, the air tellingly stale, and every inch of him aches. He has been rewritten, down to his very atoms, and rebuilt again. 

“H?” A voice he knows says, and he turns his stiff neck towards the sound. “H!”

She’s on him in a blink, faster than a hurricane, all professional boundaries and formal barriers knocked down in her relief. He closes his eyes, and breathes in the scent of her dark, dark hair. Everything in his life for the past three years is suspect, and yet, he finds he cannot doubt this, cannot doubt her.

His throat is as dry as a bone, but he still manages to croak out: “Please- _Molly_ \- Henry. Call me Henry.”

**Author's Note:**

> And then they said fuck you to the MIB fraternization rules and got together like they should've at the end of the movie
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [mayfriend](http://mayfriend.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
